1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatus to schedule and wirelessly transmit information packets and more specifically to employ superposition coding to improve the forward link (FL) data throughput performance in a wireless communication system.
2. Background
There are a variety of wireless communication standards that may control the communication in a cellular communication system. The cdma2000 1xEV-DO standard (“cdma2000 High Rate Packet Data Air Interface Specification,” TIA/EIA/IS-856) is a system for packet data communication developed by Qualcomm Inc., U.S.A. in the late 1990's to provide general data communication services in a wireless mobile environment. The 1xEV-DO system adopts intrinsic resource assignment methods corresponding to the characteristics of forward and reverse links.
Under the 1xEV-DO standard, the base station may transmit one data packet to one cell phone during that moment in time. In operation, a base station may continuously transmit pilot signals with a constant power. On receiving a pilot signal, a cell phone determines the intensity of the received pilot signal and sends the results back to the base station in the form of a requested Data Rate Control (DRC).
Fading is the probabilistic variation in the received intensity of a radio transmission. The phone's distance from the base station may affect the received pilot signal intensity. Also, dynamic events, such a truck passing between the cell phone and base station, the pilot signal reflecting off buildings to combine with or cancel the main pilot signal, may affect the received pilot signal intensity. In short, distance and interference conditions create disparity in this Forward Link Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (FL SINR) and thus affect the requested DRC of each phone.
At the base station, a scheduler method may rank each cell phone by its pilot signal intensity (namely, requested DRC) and utilize that ranking to determine which one cell phone may receive the next data packet. In a typical intrinsic resource assignment method, the base station may send out that data packet which corresponds to the cell phone having the “most” deserving signal-to-interference-to-noise ratio (SINR). Which cell phone is most deserving may be decided by a scheduling method which may rank each cell phone based on a result of an evaluation function. During that moment in time, the most deserving user's needs may be addressed while the needs of the remaining users (in the above example, the needs of twenty-nine users) may have to wait.
Conventional intrinsic resource assignment methods attempt to provide fair service to all cell phones. This leads to a problem in that the weakest set of users limit the overall system data throughput performance Moreover, users with lower FL SINRs are penalized with a lower than potential throughput and higher delays for their particular cell phone. There is therefore a need in the art for a system that improves the forward link data throughput performance and diminishes the delays for users with FL SINRs that are lower than the FL SINR of the stronger set of users while meeting the needs of the most deserving (possibly weaker set of) users).